Over Strand and Field: A Record of Travel through Brittany

kers dash against its walls, and when the tide is low they gently unfurl on the sand. Little rocks covered with sea-weed dot the beach and look like black

door, rise the roofs of the houses with their open garret-windows, their gyrating weather-co

t a tree nor a blade of grass, but only some old crumbling walls, gr

ality, which lies peacefully in a marshy meadow. At the entrance to Saint-Servan rise the four towers of the Chateau de Solidor, which are connected by curtains and are perfectly black

the cannons and dangle your feet over the abyss. In front of you lies the mouth of the Rance, which flows between two green hills, the coa

leeping. One by one the lights went out in the windows, and the lighthouses shone red in the darkness, which was quite blue above us and glittering with myriads of twinkling star

lls are piled up in a ditch. From that point you can see these words writte

uengrogne; like its sister, La Générale, it is high, broad,

some of their battlements in the sea and if ivy spread its kindly leaves over their tops. Indeed, do not mo

When she returned, she was accompanied by a pretty little girl who wished to see the strangers. Her arms were bare and she carried a large bunch of flowers. Her black curls escaped from

an, which seems to grow wider and wider, and the crude colour of the sky, which seems to grow larger and larger, till you are afraid you will lose yourself in it. Vessels look like lau

ht from the earth. It is a sort of voluptuous uneasiness mingled with fear and delight, pride and terror, a battle between one's mind and one's nerves. You feel

n courage, a greater determination in willpower, in fine, a more complete expansion of liberty struggling against all native fatalities? And with what a bold relief the episode stands out in history, and still, how wonderfully well it fits in, thereby giving a glimpse of the dazzling brightness and broad horizons of the period. Faces, living faces, pass before your eyes. You meet them only once; but you think of them long afterwards, and endeavour to contemplate them in order that they may be impressed more deeply upon your mind. Was not the type of the old soldiers whose race disappeared around 1598, at the taking of Vervins, fine and terrible? It was a type represented by men like Lamouche, Heurtand de Saint-Offange, and La Tremblaye, who came back holding the heads of his enemies in

Ligue, and Philip II. Finally he was disarmed, that is, won over and appeased (by terms that were such that twenty-three articles of the treaty were not disclosed); then, not knowing what to do, he enlis

his subject or his ally. They wished to fight on their own account, and to do business through their

illing to maintain their franchises. De Fontaines complied in the hope of gaining time. The following year (1589), they chose four generals who were independent of the governor. A year later, they obtained permission to stretch chains. De Fontaines acceded to everything. The king was at Laval and he was waiting for him. The time was close at hand when he would b

lied the most, which they climbed. These bold attempts were not infrequent, as proved by the asce

r de La Lanbelle; they entered into an understanding with a Scotch gunner, and one dark night they armed t

ed, to which they fastened their rope ladder. The ladder was then hoisted to the top of the to

nd feel for the rungs of the ladder with their hands and feet. Suddenly (they were midway between the ground and the top), they felt themselves going down; the rope had slipped. But they did not utter a sound; they

ssistance; some put up ladders, and entered the tower without encountering any resistance and plundered it. La Pérandière, lieutenant of the castle, perceiving La Blissais, said to him: "This, sir, is a most miserable night." But La Blissais impressed upon him that this was not the time for conversation. The Count of Fontaines had not made his appearance. They went in search of him, an

ld accept a governor from his hands, his son, for example, a mere child, for that would have meant himself, but they obstinately refused to liste

r, having arrested the Marquis of La Noussaie and the Viscount of Denoual, it cost

ommercial relations with Dinan and the other cit

city, might be likely to deprive them of the freedom they had ju

-known: they were to take care of themselves, not be obliged to

travellers on foreign seas, their predominant trait is audacity; they have violent natures which are almost poetical in their brutality, and often narrow in their obstinacy. There is this resemblance betwe

e are no carriages or luxuries of any description; everything is as black and reeking as the hold of a s

the man who is in charge of them, and it is better not to be in their vicinity at that time. But when morning co

ence of which is confirmed by a contemporaneous text, the exterior of things has changed but little, no

es, who can be seen floating above the clouds. In the foreground, all Christianity, together with crowned kings and princesses, is kneeling.

ferings, a fact that struck me as being rather peculiar in this place of sea perils. There are no flowers nor candles in th

e island of Grand-Bay. There, can be found the tomb of Chateaubriand; th

est. The water was still trickling over the sand. At the foot of the island,

semate, with a courtyard enclosed by crumbling walls. Beneath this ruin, and half-way up the hill, is a space about ten feet square, in the middle of w

t memory; the breakers will dash against his tomb during storms, or on summer mornings, when the white sails unfold and the swallow arrives from across the seas; they will bring him the melancholy voluptuousness of far-away horizons and the caressing

d looked at it as if it contained its future

t; they had fallen from its face and drowned their brilliancy in the water, on which they seemed to float. The red disc set slowly, robbing the sky of the pink tinge it had diffused over it, and while both the sun and the delicate color were wearing away, the pale blue shades of night crept over the heavens. Soon the sun touched the

sounds could be heard. The breakers dashed against the rocks and fell back with a roar; long-legged gnats sang in our ears and disappeared with a buzzing o

pted to put on their shirts, the moist linen clung to their wet shoulders and we could see their white torsos wrigg

f his locks. His broad chest was parted by a stubby growth of hair that extended between his powerful muscles. It heaved with the exertion of swimming and imparted an even motion to his flat abdomen, whi

there are still here and there in the world, far from the pushing crowd, some hearts which are tormented by the constant search of beauty, and forever feeling the hopeless need of expressing what cannot be expressed and doing what can only be dreamed, it is to Nature, as to the home of the ideal, that they must turn. But how can they? By what magic will they be able to do so? Man has cut dow

res his shape as well as the qualities that render it beautiful. Where is the poet, nowadays, even amongst the most brilliant, who knows what a woman is like?

fact of their existence, left the mark of their noble attitudes and pure blood on the works of the masters. In Juvenal, I can hear confusedly the death-rattles of the gladiators; Tacitus has s

d truth? Fortune and success will fall to the lot of those who know how to dress and clothe facts! The tailor is the king of the century and the fig-leaf is its symbol; laws, art, poli